Bittersweet (I Could Taste In My Mouth)
by sidewinder
Summary: John helps Olivia talk through her feelings about Elliot's sudden retirement. (Fin/Munch slash, unrequited Elliot/Olivia. Part of my "Spaces In Between" series.


_Author's Note: This story is set following the events of the season 13 premiere episode, "Scorched Earth", and is part of my "Spaces In Between" series. Please see my author profile for a sequential index of all stories in this series._

* * *

Olivia toyed with her empty beer bottle and checked the time on her cellphone. She wondered if it would it be bad form to start on a second round before anyone else arrived. Then again, with the week she'd been having, she felt she had more than enough excuse to be drinking a bit harder, and faster, than usual.

It wasn't as if any of the others were here yet to notice or comment, and neither John nor Fin were exactly lightweights when it came to boozing their way through a Friday night. She caught the bartender's eye and indicated for another round, then looked down one more time at the phone on the table.

She wasn't going to call him again. She _wouldn't_ , dammit, even if it killed her.

The not knowing.

The silence in response to her concern, her need for some kind of reassurance.

The voicemail every time and nothing more.

 _"Hey, it's Elliot. Leave a message, I'll get back to you soon as I can."_

"Yeah, sure," she muttered under her breath. For days she'd been trying, over and over, and apparently "soon as I can" had at some point over the past few months turned into "never".

All those years as partners, everything they'd done for each other, everything they'd _meant_ to each other, and now it seemed as though it was all for nothing. At least as far as Elliot was apparently concerned, given how he could just walk away from her like he had.

Her empty bottle was replaced with a full, cold one and she nodded her thanks. At least the beer gave her something else to fidget with instead of her phone, making it easier to fight that temptation to call again.

She took a sip and felt relief upon seeing John enter the bar at last, a welcome and familiar sight when everything else around her was shifting, changing, becoming unrecognizable. He went to the bar to place his own drink order, getting something on tap, and then came over to the high table she'd claimed for them, pulling over a stool next to Olivia.

"Where's Fin?" she asked. These days it was rare to see one without the other close behind.

"On his way. He wanted to show Rollins a few things about navigating the department's computer network before calling it a night."

"Ah. Is she joining us as well?"

"I told him to invite her along." John lifted his glass but paused before taking a sip to ask, "That's all right, isn't it?"

"Of course," Olivia answered, although she wasn't necessarily thrilled by the prospect. Amanda Rollins was another one of those 'changes' at SVU she wasn't prepared to deal with at the moment, no matter if the others seemed happy to welcome the young detective from Atlanta into their squad.

"I like her. Fin does, too."

"She certainly seems to have won over the men in this unit."

"Ah, but Olivia, you _know_ you're the only woman with a room in my heart these days," John teased playfully. "I think she's got a good kind of energy to bring in to the unit. A little brightness to balance the rest of our crabby old cynical ways."

"If you say so." This second beer would go down really fast at this rate, Olivia thought. She really didn't want to talk about Rollins tonight. Didn't necessarily feel the need to socialize with her off duty, either. Maybe she'd end up calling this an early evening, come up with some reason why she couldn't linger after finishing this second round.

They both fell quiet for a time, Olivia knowing she wasn't being good company but not having the energy to muster up a new line of conversation. John eventually pushed on, his voice taking on a softer than usual tone as he said, "Captain told me about Elliot. I'm sorry."

Olivia nodded in acknowledgement. "He earned it," she said, repeating the words she'd forced out to Cragen earlier. Words that might be true but they felt hollow.

"You didn't." She glanced up and wished John wasn't giving her _that_ look now—the sympathetic one, his _I'm-here-if-you-need-to-talk_ look over the upper rim of his glasses. "Not talking to you first or returning any of your calls…"

"How do you know—" she started.

"I'm a detective, 'Liv. I know. I notice things. Like how you've barely kept that phone out of sight for days, how many times I've seen you on it, waiting for someone to pick up."

"I've been that obvious, huh?"

"Only to a close friend. One who's not afraid to say you deserve better from your partner after all of these years. I could be brutally honest and say you deserved better than Elliot from the start, but…" John sat back and shrugged. "You know how I feel on that subject."

"You _and_ Fin." Nothing had ever been quite the same in their unit since Chester Lake had come and gone from the 16th—especially not since Fin had felt betrayed by Elliot to the extent of wanting to transfer out. And betraying Fin meant betraying John; their loyalty to and defense of each other was unwavering.

Olivia had thought the same of her and Elliot, even if they weren't lovers. Clearly she'd been wrong…maybe that's what hurt most of all. "I recognize better than anyone that Elliot is no saint, that he's made his share of mistakes and he's not always good at acknowledging them, let alone apologizing for them. I just…I never thought he'd leave without a glance back."

"Maybe it's the only way he could."

"Maybe," Olivia agreed, although it did nothing to ease the hurt and anger she felt about it. "Remember when you got shot?" she asked, thinking back.

John winced. "Do you think Fin would ever let me forget, given precisely _where_ I took a bullet?"

She couldn't help but smile a little bit at that. "At the hospital, that day, that was when I first found out about you two. I remember…seeing how much Fin was worried about you, how much he loved you and how you both had managed things so well while still being partners…it left me wondering…" she paused, still finding it hard to speak of these things, the real depth of her feelings.

John finished for her, "…why couldn't you have that with Elliot?"

She nodded. "That same night I found out that Kathy had finally served him with the divorce papers. And I really thought, for a time…maybe it was meant to be after all. That I should go for it, say something, find out one way or another…"

"Did you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

She sighed. "I don't know, John. I don't know. First I thought, don't rush it. Give him time to grieve that relationship and be ready to move on. But then it seemed like everything between _us_ started going wrong. Maybe I got scared about how our feelings already were affecting us on the job." She thought back on that day when the fear had become all too real—when Elliot had put her safety first and it had ended up costing a young child his life. "I thought distance might help so I ran away instead of confronting things head on. Then I come back, months later, and it seemed as if the chance that I thought was there was now gone." She took another sip of her beer and apologized, "I'm sorry if none of that made any sense."

"No, it did. Maybe you didn't run because you were scared, Liv, but because you knew, somewhere inside, that it really wasn't meant to be?"

"Obviously not. But honestly, I don't know how you both do it. How are you able to go out there together when you might have to make that same choice some day that Elliot did—to save Fin or to honor the job and save someone else's life?"

His answer came without pause, and with a certain element of…coldness that could have been frightening if Olivia didn't know John as she did. "Because I know what choice I would make, no hesitation. I only hope it never comes to that."

"You're not going to tell me what your choice would be, are you?"

John simply gave her an enigmatic smile. She shook her head and laughed it off.

"Listen, I have no horse in this race so if it would help, do you want me to try to reach out, find out what's going on with Elliot?" John asked. "Abuse my rank for a good cause, see if there's anything…"

"God, no, John, don't. No." On this point she was certain. "He chose to walk away." _From me, from all of us._ "That was his decision and I won't chase after him. I just…it's going to take some time to let it go."

"Of course." He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. It would be all right, she knew. _She_ would be all right. What point was there mourning for that which had never been?

"Want to get some food while we wait on the others? I'm starving," John suggested.

"Sure. Anything sounds good."

"I'll put in an order of wings."

John got up again to give the bartender their order. Olivia took one last look at her silent phone, then put it away in her purse for the rest of the night. Of course letting go wouldn't be quite that easy, but it was each small step that mattered right now.

* * *

"Ready for a quiet weekend?"

"One can only hope," John said to Fin, as they walked toward the subway to head home. "I realize in the long run we'll be glad for the extra hands on deck, but right now it's extra _work_ breaking someone new in."

"Uh huh," Fin agreed, and then after a pause added, "By the way, I told Rollins about us tonight."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Back at the house, before headin' to the bar. Figured I should be straight up if I'm gonna be working with her more from now on. Wanted to make sure it wouldn't be an issue."

"Fair enough. And?"

"And, the only issue's gonna be me constantly hearing how she thinks we make a cute couple."

John smiled. "Well, I happen to agree with her on that point." He was glad that was clear in the air, not something he'd have to remember to step lightly around in workday conversation once again. But he was more pleased by the fact that Fin had been the one to bring it up to Amanda in the first place. It had taken years for Fin to come out to his own son, yet since then, he seemed gradually more and more comfortable about being true to himself, as well as to others.

"I had a bit of a talk with Olivia about the changes at the 16th as well," John said. "Though of course she's more concerned about who has departed than who's new."

"Yeah, what's up with that? I mean…I'm not shedding any tears about Stabler bein' gone for good. Even so, you'd think he could've stopped by to say goodbye to everyone. At least 'Liv."

"Who knows. Maybe we never will." John couldn't help but wonder, given his ever-skeptical nature, if there was a lot more to the story than they'd been told. Had Elliot _really_ retired, or might he have taken some kind of deep undercover assignment they'd only hear about some years down the road? He supposed it didn't matter…as long as they never ended up getting called to a crime scene to find his dead body, identifiable only by the wallet in his pocket…

Or floating in the East River, like…

John shook off the dark memories of another lifetime and followed Fin down into the 34th Street station. He was glad to be heading home with someone who made it feel that way. He hoped that Olivia would someday find that person who could give her the same place to belong.


End file.
